YIPPPPPPEEEE!! Our 1st broody just hatched her 1st chick....

One of our 1st PBR hens to go broody on us hatched her first chick night before last. I'm doing a happy dance! The little chick is a mutt I am thinking, but oh so cute. It looks like PBR in the coloring I think, with a black body and little yellow dot on it head, yellow tipping it's wings, and a yellow belly, but it also looks to have a red tint in the black feathers and a different shaped face and head. Doesn't matter to me what it ends up being though. We took the chick from her because we really didn't know how long it had been in there and we didn't want to risk it starving, or accidently drowning in the little water dish we have there for the hen. Yesterday she hatched 2 more, 1 was still wet but looked yellow, and the other I do believe is the cutest chick I have ever seen. It is all yellow with red tinting on its head, back and wings. Even my DH saw it and said, "well, hello there, wow look at you!" My DH told me this morning that she has all kinds of chicks out there now.......and wants me to go get them. I so don't want to take her babies from her, but when she is done hatching and out of the pen we have no way to keep loose chicks safe and I worry they won't make it.

We have had the darndest good luck with hens going broody and it is so shocking to us. We now have 9 hens out of 34 hens that have gone broody.....8 PBR and 1 brown leghorn. The only problem has been that they want to take up setting in the nest boxes and then the other girls have their minds set on laying in the nest box so they then sit on the setting hen to do so. Then eggs have gotten really dirty and broken, and we had to move them to where they wouldn't be bothered. The 1st two broodies we made nest's for in a set of rabbit pens my DH built, where they had their own 'privacy' boxes. The 3rd one made her nest under the nest boxes and won't let anyone else near it, so we left her. Then a couple of days later there were 3-4 more broodies and I asked DH where we were going to put them, and he informed me that he had just dunked them in cold water about an hour before in an attempt to bet them not broody. I said well, so much for that.........I was just in there and I think they climbed their wet selves right back into the nest boxes....on the eggs. I told him that I know we didn't want to lose the egg production true enough, but if the idea is to get more pullet's....then why not let the hens do it? I finally talked him into in most of the way, so then we took these big galvinized steel stacking pens we just got 2 weeks ago for $2 and converted them into broody housing. We now have 4 more set up so they are not bothered. After we did that, my DH said....NO MORE! Well, I've got him talked into additional housing for the other 2 that are trying to set in the nest boxes. (hee hee). I told him at this point, what difference does one more make? Besides....the weather has been surprisingly cooler here lately so I figure what would it hurt to let mother nature take its coarse?
I think I need to keep a record of all this....I haven't heard of one small flock having so many go broody, has anyone else?

Well, thank you all for letting me share my joy and wonderment. I can't wait to see how many chicks come out of this and I am secretly.....shhhhhh....hoping we have even more go broody! Might be too much to hope for, but if we've had this many do it...........^_^

three cheers for broody hens!!!

OK, now i'll read your post, wanted to be the first to repond...

and PBRs too.... what do you think they might be crossed with, the leghorns, wow that would be some porductive hens!

soooo happy for you!

Think of all the good eating those chicks are going to make! There's bound to be lots of roos in there!!!
Congratulations!

MollyD

thanks tf.......well we had 2 breeding roosters at the time.....a PBR and a RIR. They are all setting on each others eggs and the hens are PBR, Brown Leghorn, and 1 Ameracauna.....but this hen only has brown eggs under her, so I am thinking it must be a PBR/ RIR mix. The yellow one with the red tint looks exactly like the ones Elle just posted on a couple of other threads.....anyone know what those are?
A couple of our girls are setting on a couple of Leghorn eggs.....so if they make it, that should be an interesting mix for sure.

Thank you Molly.....you are right, lots of good roos to eat, though between you and me I am hoping for lots and lots of pullets. Between all the mixed up orders and 'surprise' orders we got, we have rooster's coming out our ears right now. In about a month or so, we are going to be butchering 70 PBR roos and almost 90 cornish cross. A lot of work! We are going to be selling some of those when they are done and our freezer will be nice and cozy....thank goodness!

Ah so you want pullets for eggs then? Well here's wishing they're all gals then LOL!!

MollyD

Thanks Molly.....now crossing my fingers.....hey, does the chicken fairy grant this type of
wish or is that only for chickens you don't have yet? : )

Congrats, Ladybug! That's great news! Oh, by
all means- I would want to see just how many go
broody, myself. They must be very happy at your
place. you know with all these broodies, you're
going to have to let some mama hens take care
of their hatchlings, right? It's the Trouble with
Tribbles all over agian! Go hens!

ladybug I think you have to make that sort of wish Before they Hatch!

MollyD

Good luck LadyBugs! I hope you get lots of pullets.

the chicken fairy grants ALL KINDS of chicken wishes... Pullets for you!

and don't put all your eggs in one basket, let the hens have some and you can see the difference in growth etc... i lost almost as many to other things as the hens lost to rats... or cats... still haven't decided...

thanks truest, I just started a record of it today. I'm not sure why so many have gone broody....I wonder if it is in their blood lines or in their feed or what. We feed them pellets and laying mash, they are free range all day and get scraps. They also get a little bit of hog feed. I know that sounds a bit odd, and I am not sure what it does for them as far as their nutritional needs are.....but they LOVE it and we get it for free. My DH works as a site manager at a hog farm and when they have big feed spills or their is feed left after the fattened hogs are shipped, he bags up as much as he can. (it just gets tossed out otherwise) They chickens love it so much that they prefer it to anything else but we have found that they can not handle it as their only feed.....or they stop laying eggs. Now we just mix in a small % with the pellets and mash. We did try to go back just to regular feed, and they gave us dirty looks and ignored it. Then they ALL followed me around the yard for about 3 whole days....so we compromised and added some back in. Now we are all happy again. Like I said, I don't know what is really causing the broodiness.

Molly, I was going to say I better get to wishing for lots of pullets, but then I heard from tf that the Chicken Fairy said lots of pullets for me. Must be my lucky day and she must not be so grouchy these days.......I didn't hear any mention of giving teeth in trade..... : )

tf.....I would love to leave the chicks with their mama's more than you know......but we have some dogs that can not be trusted. We have 5....well maybe 4, I think 1 ran off. Believe me, I do not want all these dogs and I wish they were not here....but DH will not listen to reason and insists on keeping them. Two of them are on chains until evening, when someone can be with them outside all the time to watch them. None of the chicks, little turkey poults, or ducklings are out where they can be gotten. The little dog though, slipped into the brooder house when we were doing chores and killed one of the cornish. My DH has made all kinds of little outdoor movable pens and I'll have to work on him to make one for at least one of the hens and her babies, if not more. Gotta work on letting the broodies stay broody first though, I think!

Update~ PBR #1 had 5 more hatched chicks this morning! It looks like 2 PBR and 3 not sure what they are's but cute as can be. I took 4 and left her with 1 and she has 3 more eggs under her. My DH had his doubts on how many a broody hen could hatch and I said that she would have to do a lot better of a job than we could ever do in the incubator and he didn't really know if he should believe it. She has already done a lot better than we have so I am very happy!

LOL Molly!

Todays update.....Ok.....broody PBR #1 hatched 1 more of her 3 remaining eggs which leaves 2 and one of those has a pip mark in it. I'm glad she was setting on 10 cause it makes the math easy....now she at a 80% hatch rate.....one more on the way but trying not to count chicks before they hatch!

Broody PBR #2 hatched her 1st one through the night. I counted how many eggs she is on, but managed to forget.....gonna have to drag a paper and pen out there. I hoping for more chicks, but she has those eggs so dirty I am surprised that she has one.

Broody PBR #3 is under the nest boxes and is getting close, so I checked under her too. Nothing yet, but oh my gosh is she sitting on a ton of eggs of all different kinds and they are dirty too. It is not so clean under there and with all the swapping of nest's the girls did at first......this was not her nest to start with. She went and swiped it from another broody. I am thinking there must be something going on with those eggs though and the hatching will begin soon, because the whole time I was in there she was making this really low snore/hum noise. She also usually leaves her nest every day for a fast drink and a bite and she didn't do that today. I just read that when eggs are about to hatch, broodies won't leave their nests at all for 24-48 hours....so I am crossing my fingers!

The rest of the broody pens are holding 2 broodies each.....or have room for 2 each and a feed and water dish. Each 'floor' has two pens. I'll have to come up with a fabulous name for this stack of pens. For right now I'm calling them Broody pens #4, #5, #6 and if we need it #7.
We set up the bottom floor the other night .......in pen #4 are 2 PBR's, in #5 there is another PBR and the Brown Leghorn. I read last night that it is very unusual for a PBR to go broody, that it has all but been bred out of them. The only one they said was less likely was......a Leghorn. I know the White Leghorns are usually awfully flighty little things and I have noticed that our Brown Leghorns are slightly less nervous acting. Signs of this are showing up with the Broody B Leghorn......she has went broody and is sitting on her eggs, but she does not seem to be in that trance light state of mind broodies usually seem to go into. It is almost like the poor thing has ADD.....she bops her head this way and that way, and although she stays on the nest, she is 'spinning' on it. I was out in the hen house for over 2 hours and I swear every time I looked in on her she was in a different spot! I don't know if she will have a successful hatch, but I am just so interested to see if a Leghorn can and will do it.......and be successful. 'Scientific' research....cause sheer curiousity killed the cat, didn't ya know?

Soooo, I set up the 2nd floor of the Broody stack today, made a little nest, put the eggs in it and put the PBR that has been sitting ever so faithfully in the nest boxes for 3 days in it. She was pretty put out about being moved and boy did she let me have it. My goodness did she cackle her head off. I imagine if it had been in English it would have sounded like bleep, bleep, BLEEPITY, BLEEEEEP.
So I left her be for about 10 minutes and when she piped down I went back in......she had finally noticed the eggs and settled right in.

Soon, our 1st broody hen will be done and off the nest and I figured the only way to keep track of who was still broody and who has just started was to mark their head or back with a paint stick.

Well, that is the progress for today. Hope no one minds that these are so long, but there is just so much going on here I had to share it!


Christy (trying not to count her chicks before they hatch) ^_^

Christy, it sounds like you are having much fun. LOL

GG

Yep Granny, I sure am. Getting a little crazy.......ok, crazier around here and it's keeping me hoppin, but it sure is interesting and I'm learning a lot! : )

Christy it all sounds very interesting and Very confusing!!

MollyD

Well, I think with the number of broody hens and the fact that all but one are PBR's it is VERY confusing. Am I writing about it in a way that is also confusing? I'm trying to write about it to where it makes sense, but I'm not sure if I am succeeding or not.

I'm probably tired Christy. I'm ready for bed but I need to get at least two loads of laundry done before I go to sleep.

MollyD

The work just doesn't seem to end does it Molly? I know my 'to do' list seems to get bigger and bigger anyway. I bet you are wiped out after your ornery dog got you up so early this morning. I hope you get a good nights sleep and she behaves herself tonight!

Christy

yippe, those hens are working great, and you are having too much fun!

i have a cross between a brown leghorn and a buckeye, and she went broody at 6 weeks of age!

night!
tf

Wowzers, so much going on in the henhouse!
I love reading all that's up, Christy. I can easily
tell you are having a blast. I am amazed at the
leghorn(s). My white leghorn never went broody.
The longest I left eggs was when they numbered
18! I figured by then it would never happen.
I hope you and Dh can work some pen arrangement
out for one or 2 of your hens and chickies. I love
watching my birds. I learn so much,and all about their
heiarchy. My next goal is to have a couple of my
young ones go broody- thinking it will be one of the
cohcins first, but could be an ameraucana, too.
Have you a way to get any pictures for us? That
would be cool. Also, how did you mark your hens?
Keep us posted!
Joni

Wow tf......at 6 weeks? That must be a record! Oh wait.......was that Chuck by any chance? I have heard cochins are very good broodies and mama's.

Hi Joni......I am so glad you like reading it all! I am amazed at the broody leghorn too. I'm sure some have done it somewhere.....I just haven't heard of it. We had White Leghorns years ago and they never seemed to ever care about the egg. In fact, I remember it seemed like they couldn't wait to get out of the nest box fast enough. Hop in, lay the egg, and almost run out as soon as they were done! I have noticed that the brown leghorns tend to take a little more time, a little anyway, and settle down into the nest box a little more, but they don't usually seem to spend as much time at it as the barred rocks do. I hope one....okay, more than one go broody for you this next time! Oh, it is so exciting!

I am hoping for a special set up for a couple of the mama's and babies too. We have only gotten to see one set, years ago, and it is absolutely adorable to watch them. That time we had a little Red Star hen go hide a nest.....(it turned out that several of our girls were laying there) but she hatched out 23 chicks! They followed her everywhere and what a site that was. I have a picture somewhere of it....in a box somewhere.
I don't have a dig. camera but I can snap some with my 35 mm. It might take a week or so to get them on here. (sigh) I know with seeing everyone else's pics, I want to share too!

I haven't bothered the broody's today.......everyone is so excited about it all that my DH and kido's ran out first thing this morning and found more chicks, but who had hatched what got lost in the jumble of 3 different people trying to tell me, at the same time about it. I will go out pretty soon to look and count. I don't want to bother them too much.....I don't know if that will make them stop hatching, but I don't want to take the risk!

I'm not sure what you mean by how I mark my hens. Do you mean like in general, or like I was describing above with the paint stick? With the paint stick, I was thinking that when our first broody is done hatching her eggs and we return her back with the rest of the hens, we would have to have some way of identifying her, so that if she is still broody and tries to set on another nest of eggs, we will know that we will have to break her of it. (I think it would be just too hard on them to let them do it for 2 months) Our barred rocks look so much alike it is hard to tell them apart, and we don't have leg bands right now. That way, we will also know if yet another one goes broody for the 1st time.

Christy

Christy, I think it is just wonderful that your hens are so happy and comfortable that they are hatching chicks themselves! Very cool!
I would love to see some pictures, too.

Hi Beth......This is only the 2nd group of hens we have ever had and we got these last June and July. I still feel pretty new to all of this......I would like to think it is because we are doing it just right, but I have to wonder if it is in their bloodlines or the stars are just smiling down on us! : )


Christy

Well, I finally got out to check on my broodies. Today, the chick count has been a very tricky one and has been twisting my brain around pretty good. The problem is between my DH , my kids and I all going out to check on them, then pulling chicks out of either of the two nests, both with barred rocks sitting on them.......whew what a mess. Trying to talk to my 7 yr old DS about how many chicks they had pulled out this morning and out of what box and how many did they bring in the house and how many did they leave with mama, and WITCH mama (#1 or #2) and how many chicks did you find in there this morning again? You can easily see how this conversion easily felt exactly like being in the middle of the Abbot and Costello skit...."Who's on First"........except maybe x's 3. Mine would be called "Who's Chick is This?" That boy had my brain running in circle's!

Sooooo, this is the new chick count I finally came up with.

PBR #1 ~ she had 2 eggs left to hatch out of 10 and this morning she had 2 PBR chicks, so that one is easy enough.......except.....now where did that other egg come from? I was very sure of my count and even checked the corners so I could get an accurate count. All I can figure is that when I lifted her up a bit, maybe an egg was hiding behind her? I can't figure out how that would have happened 2 different times though. She did 'hide' a chick on me....it must of been tucked in her wing so snug and cozily that when I lifted up mama, it went up with her. The other thing I think could have happened is maybe one of the kids snuck one in on her....they insist they didn't though. So I guess she has hatched 10 chicks out of 11 eggs so far? She has a chick with her tonight and is sitting on the egg. I almost hate to, but if she hasn't hatched it by tomorrow I'm going to have to say maybe its a dud and turn her loose. Adding together the 3 days waited to see if she was for sure broody, her getting her nest and going another 21 says sitting, and now she is going into day #4 with hatching......that's 28 days. Seems like a long time! If she hasn't hatched it, maybe I'll slip it to broody #2, just to be sure.

PBR #2 ~ she hatched 5 eggs today and 1 yesterday so she is at 6 chicks. I have no idea what the real count on her eggs is though.....I think she rolled a couple out of the nest and into the corner, no good maybe? Once she had a handful of chicks though, she decided not to sit on her nest anymore and was in another another corner. Of the 3? eggs left where in the nest one was pipping. I couldn't seem to convince her that she still needed to sit on those eggs. I put her on them and she came right back off. In worry that we would lose the pipping one, I took her chicks and she sat back down. I'll have to see if that was successful tomorrow.

PBR #3 ~ Nothing going on there yet. I'm not sure what she is up to. Yesterday she wouldn't leave her nest for anything and today she popped up for a food run 2 different times.

The remaining 5 broody's all seem to be doing fine. I am happy to report that the B Leghorn seems to have settled into things a lot better. She was not nearly as scitzo today. She even managed to stay in the same place the whole time I was out there! Maybe there is hope for her yet!

I took some pictures today....of all the broodies except for #1 and #2. They are in different pens than the others and are going to be very hard to get pics of. They are in a cage inside the barn on the outside wall of the hen house. It is pretty dark back there and very close quarters. Well, as far as people fitting back in there go. DH had to store all the wood and materials he has gotten from an old house he is tearing down and it is all stacked not too far in front of the cages. Also, the pens they are in were designed with rabbits and their nest box needs in mind, so the little door to the nest boxes is pretty small. It has been a bit of a booger to get back there to do chick checks. I'm thinking I'll shine a flashlight on them and take the pic, and hope they turn out!

Well, I don't know about you all, but this chick is beat! ^_^

Christy

Well, today's update is ~

PBR #1 ~ she had one egg left that seemed to have snuck in from nowhere yesterday, and today it was gone. I can not imagine where it might have went to. I figure that it seemed to appear and disappear as if by magic?, so I'm not counting it. So her hatch rate is 100%.........10 eggs and 10 chicks all from brown eggs. My DH went and set her free before I could mark her and I thought I would wring his neck for it, but I searched around and found her.......she was still making that little low cluck cluck noise they get when they go broody, her belly was stripped bare, and her feed were pale from not eating instead of yellow, so I got her marked now.
Dang....I didn't get a picture of her sitting....I'll have to take one tomorrow of her.

PBR #2 ~ She hatched one more chick through the night, a barred rock and she had it figured that she was done.....she had gotten out of the box and was walking around the wire pen part of the cage. I took her picture in the cage, not sure if it turned out, marked her and set her free. I thought for sure that she would go straight for water, then food. She went for water and got several big drinks and I took her picture while she was doing that. She must have been hot and hungry, because then she went right to take a dust bath, and ate the dirt while she was doing it. It was a lot of fun to watch her!
She ended up hatching 7 chicks over 3 days. There was one that hatched and then died, but I didn't count that in the 7 total. 3 of the eggs that she had rolled into the corners of the box were gone today, and the 2 she had left in there I split open. Here in lies about the biggest 'dumb blonde' moment of my life.........PLEASE someone remind me next time to NOT just wack an egg (that has been sitting in a nest for 23 or so days, under the heat of a broody hen) on a hard surface in an enclosed space!!! Ohhhh YUK!!! The egg made a loud POP exploding sound and the nasty stuff flew everywhere and ran all over my bare hand. uggggg! I didn't think I was going to EVER get that smell off! The second one I took outside to crack and threw it on the ground to break. It looks like the chick had developed for about 14 days or so, then stopped growing. Guess the mama hens know this, huh?

PBR #3 ~ still no signs of anything and really I don't think she is going to do anything with the eggs. She is under the nest boxes and the eggs are nasty dirty. I'll give her a couple of more days then pull her off the nest. I wonder if I give her a baby chick or 2 if she'll accept not hatching any of her eggs better.

Well, the other 5 broodies are still doing fine. They get in a little bit nervous when I reach into their pens to fill feed and water, but they seem to be eating and drinking so I'm not too concerned with it.

So we now have 17 very cute little chicks and I got pics of them today. It will be interesting to see what all the combinations end up being!


Christy (thinking that the next time she cracks open an old egg she won't have to be
reminded not to do it inside!) ^_^

LOL Christy! You are probably too young to remember a soap opera called Peyton Place but your chickens remind me of it! LOL I hope you are keeping a diary of all this chicken adventures!!!
I starting to suspect that I'm getting too old for all these critter adventures! I get tuckered out just thinking about what I have to do.

I'm off to empty the pool for the water critters.

MollyD

I completely feel that!!!!!!!!!!!

me too. and now Dh made my work harder. i have been using the top to another pool, basically it doubles as a sandbox with a lid, USED to be my fish pond, LOL. and it has a slanted top, so i had small 2x6s to brace the sides... he kept menitoning that he OUGHT to dig a hole and bury it. and in my head i kept thinking of all the reasons he OUGHTNOT! well, he went and did it without saying so. now it's even easier for chicks to drown because it is sunk in the ground. and even harder to dump it to be refilled. it's gonna have to be almost empty to be able to lift it out of the hole, and then when i dump it, some will end up in the hole, so it will be a mess.... gee whiz! like i needed something else to do. i had one of the kids trained to dump that towards the trees and refill it with clean water nearly every day...

tf, there was I site I was at not too long ago about making sunk-in pools for ducks out of livestock tubs. They had directions on how to do it including installing a drain at the bottom. I'll go look for it......

Molly, what are ya gonna do when ya get old? One of the sextons in our area is 90 and still digging graves by hand. He also cuts grass and maintains either 3 or 4 cemeteries.

I ain't no spring chicken either. I remember before TV, we only had our imagination.

TF, why don't you have you DH fill the hole back in? That might work to make it easier to dump the "pond".

GG
♣^_^♣

yeah, right. he went to the trouble to dig it because that is how HE wants it...

Oh, I see.

GG

GG I think I am old! Less than you but way more than tf! I have a damaged spine so that makes me feel even worse.

tf I did my pool in the ground cause at the time all my water critters were way too small to climb into it. You're right it adds to the labor to clean it out. I have a chair I sit on and I use an old margarine tub to empty most of it before I even try to lift it. I don't even try to clean it out every day. I settle for 1 or 2 times a week.

I did it today and just as I was finishing a hail storm hit. It was bigger than small gravel in size. I could see it would hurt if you were out in it. I was in the coop with the other chickens ^_^

MollyD

maybe DH should clean it now? i have a spinal injury, and this heat makes it feel worse. mine is big a margarine tub won't do, need a 3 gallon bucket LOL

ours is only 4ft across. We need a bigger one since they've all grown so big they're crowding each other in there. Really need a pond.

MollyD

Molly.....you are right, I don't remember Payton Place. (never even heard of it) I have been writing about all the critter adventures here, and I blog about them too! I also have started a record, on a chart to keep track of dates, hatching times, chicks, etc.
Is there any truth in the saying, 'you are only as old as you feel?' Sorry about your damaged spine. It really must make things very tough sometimes.

tf........is there any way you could make a cover for you critter pool? Maybe so they can only use it what you are outside doing chores or something? Or maybe you could put a fence up around it somehow.........to keep the water critters in and the chicks from accidentally falling in?

Molly again.......I would hope that if you did have a pond that they wouldn't do like ours do. They will not go in the pond! They refuse and it seems like no matter of coaxing can convince them that they will love it, just give it a try. Instead the goofy ducks and geese come all the way back to the house, then try to swim in a puddle by the road or they take turns taking a quick dip in the old sink we have under the water faucet. The sink is the drinking water for all our free ranging critters and they gunk it up in a hurry! I don't know if they are just nervous or just know they are doing wrong, but when I walk up to them while they are surrounding the sink, they almost act guilty.....like they know they are doing wrong and they get up really fast and run! (I'm trying to figure out how to trick them into seeing that the pond is GOOOOOOD!)

Here's a pic of most of them hiding in the shade by the house. We have 1 Pekin female, 4 Ruin females, and 5 buff/gray tolouse (sp?) geese. Not all of them are in
this pic.